This is likely to be the last beta release. If there are no major showstoppers, next release will be 5.2.0.I will revisit all app websites and update as required.

ady is still working on a way to build fdubcd.img from scratch using mtools and other free tools. In the mean time, I would like to get this release out to see how well the superfloppy method works in the real world.

In "/ubcd/menus/grub4dos/system.lst", the "Hardware Detection Tool V0.5.2" entry is incorrect. It needs correction in the "/ubcd/tools/linux/syslinux2grub4dos/syslinux2grub4dos.sed" script so the resulting boot entry be adequate for grub4dos (most probably the two "/boot/syslinux/" relative path changes/editions in the script will correct this, but I have not tested it).

***

The current mkfdubcd (for fdubcd-custom.iso) scripts should not be included in UBCD, IMO. Currently there is no scripted replacement to customize the new fdubcd superfloppy, but leaving the old script for fdubcd-custom.iso will bring confusion for users and won't work in UBCD 5.2, as all fdubcd boot entries now expect a superfloppy. If a user needs to customize the new superfloppy, it would be useful and helpful to start a topic here in the forum.

Images for CD, USB key and Floppy disks now use Syslinux for booting and include a variety of standard options and two previous versions of Memtest86. The new boot time options may be specified at the boot prompt.

In addition to the latest version, versions 3.5b and 4.0b are included in the official full release.

Victor, since we are talking about RAM testing tools, I would suggest avoiding the "easy" method of using memdisk to boot the full ISO image.

Note: The aforementioned additional "sed" code MUST be tested, as I can't be 100% sure that it will work as expected under all systems, specially because there are special characters involved (space, slash, ...). For example, there might be a situation where additional "quotation marks" (single, double or backslash) are needed in that "sed" code.

Victor, since we are already there in the "sed" file, please also review the lines still referring to fdubcd as iso image, so to correct them to new (super)floppy codes.

So, in short, the rationale would be a "fixed" alignment with the "dot" when displaying the version as an "8.3" file.

I think this is far too complicated. Let's just treat it as a build number that gets incremented when the disk image is changed for each release i.e. 148 => 149 => ... => 999 => 1000 => 1001 etc. After all, its sole purpose is to uniquely identify the image that one is having.

The new official memtest86's cfg file doesn't even use menu.c32 so to reduce the use of RAM before the test itself (it uses the old msg method to display a "menu"). You could either use the same method, or even merge the cfg and the msg files and use something like "COM32 menu.c32 mt86.cfg", or the CONFIG directive.

For memtest86, please avoid using all the unnecessary files in the ISO or the full ISO image with memdisk.

BTW, you can of course rename (from the official memtest images) "memtest.p" and "memtest.pp" to the 4.0b and 3.5b names respectively, already used in UBCD. And also the new "memtest" file can be renamed to its respective new version, 4.1.0.

The current "latest" version included in UBCD is replaced by the new 4.1.0 version.

BEWARE: in the official memtest86 cfg file, replace "kernel" with "linux".

A simple chainloading of memtest86's syslinux.cfg seems to work fine:

Code:

CONFIG /ubcd/boot/memtest86/syslinux.cfg /ubcd/boot/memtest86

As usual, I will try to leave as much of the syslinux.cfg file as it is unless it gives us problems.

All it needs is to use an underscore between FDUBCD and the "148" number. It was about aesthetics, and certainly not important in this particular case. I'm OK either way. The advantage of leaving it as it is now is that for version "10.00" you won't need to remember to take the underscore out .

Victor Chew wrote:

Points noted about memtest and the syslinux menu files.

Although NOT for immediate release, I would suggest, eventually, an additional beta at some point, so users can have the opportunity to test and report back about the scripts, specially "syslinux2grub4dos" under different systems (Win9x, Win2k, WinXP..., Linux) and using different types of paths (different fs, with spaces,...).

Victor Chew wrote:

A simple chainloading of memtest86's syslinux.cfg seems to work fine.... As usual, I will try to leave as much of the syslinux.cfg file as it is unless it gives us problems.

It depends on the names you use for the kernels. Also, in

/ubcd/menus/syslinux/memory.cfg

you can now just leave one boot entry for memtest86 (3.5b, 4.0b, 4.1.0), since the new additional cfg file can provide the version selection. The reason for different versions could be provided in the boot entry's TEXT HELP in memory.cfg.

I am suggesting here several (but simple) changes, so to make the (current and future) update of pmagic in UBCD easier and consistent.

Note: I hope Victor will accept these suggestions. If that turns out to be the case, the following "one-time-only" steps would be already done in the next release and they could be skipped from the following procedure.

Before I get into it, I want to make an important point. The following procedure is expressed in a generic way, so to try to cover (some) potential developments or changes that are not currently present in PMagic. That means that the following steps could be expressed in a _seemingly_ simpler way, by referencing specific words or codes as they are _currently_ expressed in PMagic. Instead, I decided to generalize the following steps, so not to be restrictive to what PMagic presents in current versions and thus covering at least part of potential future versions / variations / changes / developments in PMagic.

0_ For the purpose of this procedure, the structure of UBCD will be located at "

ubcd_extracted

". Download a new updated version of PMagic and extract it to some directory; let's call it "

Please note that the initial and ending space characters in both codes MUST be used in that last code replacement.

5.2_ From "

/boot/

" (without the quotation marks) to "

boot/

" (without the quotation marks). This step effectively deletes the first slash "/" character. Note that this "Replace all" might temporarily mess up some code that was already adequate for our needs. The unwanted result will be corrected in next steps. The reason to use such a generic replacement code is to support potential future changes in pmagic.

5.3_ From

Code:

" boot/syslinux/memdisk" (without the quotation marks)

to

Code:

" /boot/syslinux/memdisk" (without the quotation marks)

Note the initial (but no ending) space character in both codes.

5.4_ This code replacement involves several c32 Syslinux modules, and there are several alternative ways to achieve it (by using "Regular Expressions", for example).

Replace all

from "

boot/syslinux/*.c32

" to "

/boot/syslinux/*.c32

" (adds the first slash "/" character).

Note the initial (but no ending) space character in both codes.Examples:change from

Code:

" boot/syslinux/menu.c32" (without the quotation marks)

to

Code:

" /boot/syslinux/menu.c32" (without the quotation marks)

and from

Code:

" boot/syslinux/reboot.c32" (without the quotation marks)

to

Code:

" /boot/syslinux/reboot.c32" (without the quotation marks)

Note that there might be other c32 Syslinux modules mentioned in pmagic's *.cfg file(s) (like "linux.c32" for example), that may be using different paths (or no path at all) than the one used in that code replacement, so they are not (and shall not be) included in this specific step, as expected.

5.5_ From

Code:

"COM32 linux.c32" (without the quotation marks)

to

Code:

"COM32 /boot/syslinux/linux.c32" (without the quotation marks)

If necessary, this step could be coded in a more generic way, so to match some additional potential c32 Syslinux modules. For example, the ones mentioned in the previous step would be

"COM32 menu.c32"

and

"COM32 reboot.c32"

.

5.6_ From "

/pmagic/

" (without the quotation marks) to "

" (without the quotation marks). The new replacement (or second) code is empty, with no character at all, so the first code is deleted from the cfg file(s). Note that there shall NOT exist any space character in these codes, at all. Also note that the initial and ending slash "/" characters are required in the (first) code to be replaced (or, in this case, in the code to be deleted).

6_ Now save the opened *.cfg files. The new "

ubcd_extracted

" structure can be used either on a USB drive or to build a new UBCD ISO image. The "

pmagic_extracted

" directory is not required anymore.

The above steps of this procedure are "generic enough" to be used with future versions of PMagic. If someone can "translate" the above manual procedure into scripts (using the same techniques and auxiliary tools as the current UBCD scripts), it could be useful too.

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